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The Concept of Miracle from St. Augustine to Modern Apologetics John A

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The Concept of Miracle from St. Augustine to Modern Apologetics John A THE CONCEPT OF MIRACLE FROM ST. AUGUSTINE TO MODERN APOLOGETICS JOHN A. HARDON, SJ. West Baden College HYSICAL miracles as divine interventions in the visible world are P as old as the history of God's revelation to man. At the dawn of the Old Testament they were the instruments used by Yahweh to organize the chosen people under Abraham; in the time of Moses and Aaron they were the heavenly aids by which the Jews were liberated from the bonds of Egypt; in the days of Elias and Eliseus they were the signs and wonders which the Lord showed through His prophets to ratify their divine commission. With the opening of the New Cove­ nant, miracles served to announce the coming of the Savior; during His public life on earth Jesus appealed to His works of power in confirmation of His divinity; and before He ascended into heaven He gave to His Church the power to do the same miraculous works which He did, as a pledge of His assistance and a proof of her authority. During the first three centuries after Christ, Christian apologists and the early Fathers more than once referred to the miracles of the Gospel to establish the rational foundations of the faith. For example, around the year 125 a certain Quadratus presented an Apology to the Emperor Hadrian, in the course of which he said: But the works of our Savior were always present, for they were genuine: those who were healed and those who rose from the dead—who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised but were constantly present; and not only while the Savior was living, but even after He had gone they were alive for a long time, so that some of them survived even to our own day.1 Some years later, still in the second century, Melito of Sardis in­ voked the miracles of Christ as an argument for His divinity: "The deeds which Christ performed after His baptism, especially His ^his fragment has been preserved by Eusebius, Hist, eccl., IV, 3 (GCS, Eusebius, II, 302; PG, XX, 308). For the thesis of P. Andriessen that the lost Apology of Quad­ ratus is actually the Epistle to Diognelus, cf. Reckerches de thSologie ancienne et meditvale, XIII (1946), 5-39, 125-49; XIV (1947), 121-56; also the English summary of the argu­ ment in Vigiliae christianae, I (1947), 129-36. 229 230 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES miracles, conclusively prove to the world that underneath the flesh was hidden the divinity."1* FIRST THEOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF MIRACLE It was not, however, until after the great persecutions, when peace was restored to the Church, that anything like a scientific examination was begun into the exact nature and function of miraculous phenom­ ena. St. Augustine, in his controversy with the Manicheans, formu­ lated the first theological definition of miraculum.2 Shortly after his conversion in 387, he wrote a treatise for his friend, Honoratus, still a Manichean, inviting him to accept the Christian faith. After pointing out the need for revelation, Augustine shows how reasonably the word of God may be embraced when fortified by miracles. He adds: "I call a miracle anything which appears arduous or unusual, beyond the expectation or ability of the one who marvels at it."8 Some years later Augustine wrote his longest work against the Manicheans; it was directed against Faustus, who claimed that Jesus might have died although He had never been born, arguing that, while this would certainly be contrary to nature, it would be no more unnatural than the prodigies which Christ worked by healing the lame and blind and restoring life to the dead. Augustine replied to this sophism by distinguishing two ways in which the expression, "con­ trary to nature," may be taken. If it is understood to mean "contrary to the divinely established and universal order of things," then clearly God can no more act in this way than He can act against Himself. to Fragmentum 7 (PG, V, 1221). 2 In crediting St. Augustine with formulating the first definition, it should be remem­ bered that scattered through his writings the term miraculum has at least five different meanings; angelic prodigy, diabolical mirum, magical legerdemain, a phenomenon at­ tributed to pagan deities, and in general anything strange or marvelous. As a result, rationalist criticism dismisses his authority on the subject by saying that, for him, "Mir­ acle is simply an extraordinary event" (R. M. Grant, Miracle and Natural Law in Graeco- Roman and Early Christian Thought [Amsterdam, 1952], p. 217). A more balanced judgment will distinguish between Augustine's use of the term loosely and strictly—al­ though it must be admitted that, even when speaking of miracles in the strict sense, for him "the term miracle does not have the rigidly technical meaning that we find in St. Thomas" (A. Van Hove, La doctrine du miracle chez s. Thomas [Paris, 1927], p. 27). * De utilitate credendi, 16, 34 (PL, XLII, 90). It is to be noted that a mistaken refer­ ence to this passage is given in many editions of St. Thomas' Summa theologica, I, q. 105, a. 7, where St. Augustine is quoted, i.e., De trinitate, III, 5; the Marietti edition, 1950, has the correct reference. CONCEPT OF MIRACLE 231 However, he adds: "There is no impropriety in saying that God does something against nature when it is contrary to what we know of nature. For we give the name 'nature' to the usual and known course of nature; and whatever God does contrary to this, we call 'prodigies' or 'miracles/ "4 Certain critics see in these definitions a denial of God's super­ natural intervention. Augustine, they say, was a naturalist folr whom "the only difference between miracle and non-miracle is that miracle, being unusual, is assigned to a different mode of causation from that of ordinary events. [But] both classes of events are natural."6 This strange accusation comes from misunderstanding what Augustine says elsewhere in trying to explain the miraculous. He suggests that besides their natural constituents creatures also possess certain seminal elements (seminales rationes) which God can stimulate into operation, contrary to the creature's ordinary mode of activity. In Scholastic terminology this might be called the "obediential potency" present in all creation, which by His absolute power God can reduce to act and thus perform a miracle. To accuse Augustine of denying the super- naturality of miracles because he calls these seminal elements "natural" is to confuse two entirely different concepts: "natural" as applied to "the ordinary course of nature," and "natural" as applied to "some­ thing in nature which only a direct intervention of God can actuate." ST. THOMAS' CONCEPT OF MIRACLE The Augustinian concept of miracle remained standard in the Church until the time of St. Thomas Aquinas. The latter adopted Augustine's terminology, with added clarification, and then made several formula­ tions of his own that have since become classic in speculative the­ ology. St. Thomas' most extensive treatment of the subject is in De potentia in ten articles, repeated with minor changes in the Summa theologica. The following is a summary of his doctrine, drawn from these two sources:6 * Contra Faustum, XXVI, 3 (PL, XLII, 481). 6 R. M. Grant, op. cit., pp. 218-19. Augustine, says Grant, "explains miracle as due to the semina seminum implanted in the world at creation. These 'seeds* ultimately pro­ duce the miracle in nature. It is thus unusual but not strictly supernatural" (ibid.). 8 According to Van Hove, besides St. Augustine, the writers whose concept of miracle immediately influenced St. Thomas were: Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173), for whom 232 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 1) That which is arduous is called a miracle not because of the great­ ness of the thing produced, but in comparison with the faculty of nature. Consequently every effect is reckoned to be difficult—and therefore miraculous—no matter how insignificant the effect, if the latter surpasses the powers of nature.7 2) A miracle is described as something unusual because it is con­ trary to the usual course of nature, even were it to be repeated every day.8 3) A miracle may surpass the powers of nature in three ways: (a) Substantially, as when two bodies are together in one place, or the sun is made to turn back, or when the human body is glorified. Such miracles are absolutely above the capacity of nature, and represent the highest degree.9 (b) Subjectively, when the miracle consists not in the substance of what is produced but in the subject in which it occurs; for example, the resuscitation of the dead and restoring sight to the blind. Nature can indeed produce life, but not in a corpse; and it can give sight, but not to the blind.10 (c) Qualitatively, when a miracle ex­ ceeds the mode or manner in which nature produces a given effect. Thus, for example, when a person is suddenly cured of a long-standing disease, without medication and without a period of convalescence which is usual in such cases.11 4) Finally, when a miracle is said to be beyond the expectation of the one who beholds it, the hope in question is the hope of nature and not of grace, as, for instance, our hope in the future resurrection of the body.12 "Miraculum est opus creatoris manifestativum divinae virtutis" (quoted in De potentia, q. 6, a. 2); William of Auxerre (d. 1231), who does not define miracle but describes it by distinguishing miracles, which are "supra naturam," and natural events, which are "secundum naturam" (Summa aurea, I, 12); William of Auvergne (d.
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